Declining Spirits

The Self-Inflicted Wounds of the Anglican Church

by Ian Hunter

The collapse of the Anglican Church in Canada has been swifter than its detractors
predicted, more abject than its adherents can credit. StatsCan reported recently
that in the decade 1991–2001, the Anglican Church lost more than 150,000
members approaching 10 percent of its total membership. Worse, this is only
formal membership; the drop in actual church attendance has been far steeper.
And since 2001, the pace of decline has accelerated.

I take no pleasure in writing this. I am a long-term Anglican, baptized and
nurtured within that church, albeit now casting about for some more secure denominational
anchorage in which to face the oncoming tempests.

Why? What precipitated it? Three developments, I suggest, all rooted in a desire
to obey t
. . .

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